Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Doubting These Thomases

Now that I’ve found—albeit accidentally—transcriptions of the
marriage record for Thomas O’Neil and, presumably, Ellen Flannery, I’m not sure
which one of the two to believe. The only constant details between the two
records are the date and place of the wedding. And Thomas’ own name, of course.

Let’s look a little closer at the details in the records,
beginning with the one I found first: the transcription at FamilySearch.org. This
record gives Thomas’ age as thirty four, and his parents’ names as Thomas O’Neil
and Mary Greime. Admittedly, the surname Greime seems a little unusual—probably
a spelling variation, but not something so overtly egregious as to cause us to
toss it out of hand immediately.

As for Thomas’ bride-to-be, the listing gives the name Ellen
Flannery. While I’m ever so grateful to have found this little tidbit, I do
need to cool my fervor over the fortunate find and remember that this is not an
actual document I’ve found, but only a transcript
of a document. Yes, I’m so pleased that it shows Ellen’s parents to be Edward
Flannery and Margaret McKeogh, but it is not yet time to participate in a
victorious “I told you so” dance. This bit of evidence is no more than at least
two sets of eyeballs’ rendering of one page in the Family History Library’s microfilm number 1030055.

I’m getting the feeling I might become rather familiar with
that microfilm number in the next few months.

In the other record, found at Ancestry.com, we’ve already
discussed the one obvious problem: the bride’s name has been rendered as Flaming,
not Flannery. I don’t see that as too insurmountable a barrier. After all, it
doesn’t take much imagination to realize that what was written as two n’s could
easily be taken as an m, an i for an e, an n for an r, and a rather closely
formed top to a y as a g. As reader Wendy mentioned yesterday, if you’ve ever
volunteered to serve as an indexer for a FamilySearch transcription project,
you will realize what it is like getting these microfilmed documents converted
to a searchable format for online research. These things can happen.

That, however, is not the only problem with this
Ancestry.com transcription for the Thomas O’Neil marriage. While the Ancestry
entry shows the same wedding date—February 23, 1868—and even adds the location
of the ceremony as the village
of Paris, there are some additional
name variations to be concerned about. While Ellen’s father is still listed as
Edward, and her mother as Margaret, her mother’s maiden name has been revised
to show as McHugh. Granted, that could be a phonetic variation on McKeogh, so I’m
not too concerned. But still, that’s
added to the other concern about Flaming instead of Flannery.

Looking to Thomas’ parents’ information, there is another
discrepancy. And I can’t explain this one away. Thomas’ mother, Mary, is shown
here with an entirely different maiden name: Spencer. How did they get Spencer
from Greime?!

One handy device Ancestry provides is a research tips box in
the right column of pages with search results. On this particular page for
Thomas O’Neil’s marriage information, a “Suggested Records” box popped up,
providing a clickable link to a similar result. I immediately clicked through,
hoping some Research Good Fairy had just sprinkled fairy dust on the upper
right corner of my computer screen.

That, unfortunately, was not what happened, no matter how
much you all gathered together and chanted, “I do believe in fairies, I do!”

The suggested second resource turned out to be drawn from
the same original document, if you read the fine print at the bottom of each
page—so nothing new gleaned there.

Alright, then, I’ll work it from the opposite angle.
Remembering that Thomas was no longer present in the O’Neil family household
for the 1881 census, I went looking for a death record. Still nothing.

Some things just need to be set aside until later. If Rome wasn’t built in a day, neither can we put Rome’s full complement of
governmental documents online in one day (metaphorically speaking, of course;
wouldn’t we all love to see that
happen for real).

What I need to realize—and satisfy myself with, for now—is that
I’ve achieved my goal of confirming that Ellen was daughter of Edward and
Margaret Flannery, and thus also sister of Patrick Flannery. Of Edward and
Margaret’s descendants in Paris,
Ontario, I’ve now confirmed the
outcome of two, with a third possibility waiting in the wings.

Those are all viable options, Iggy...if Greime is the name. But it would take a lot of magic spelling potion to convert any Graham, Greame, or Grime to Spencer. I've obviously just got to view the actual document to see what happened!

About Me

It is my contention that, after a lifetime, one of the greatest needs people have is to be remembered. They want to know: have I made a difference?
I write because I can't keep for myself the gifts others have entrusted to me. Through what I've already been given--though not forgetting those to whom I must pass this along--from family I receive my heritage; through family I leave a legacy. With family I weave a tapestry. These are my strands.